Dear all I am so sorry for slipping off the radar for a few days. I believe I mentioned the old black dog of depression is stalking me again. Well as is always the way when he is lucking in the shadows ( and he is a ” he” even though he is vicious enough to be thought of as a bitch ..male dog he is!)

As usual I digress, wat I was saying is as is always the way I get lost in email and overwhelmed by the amount of posts I receive . This only compounds my feelings of panic and uslessness and I usually end up writing a whining post like this! Anyway here are the facts I am swamped, drowning and panicing, all I can is apologise and draw a line in the email and hit delete. I will as I always do catch up with all of you because I want to and I do so love all your work so please be patient and don’t give up on me.

Now strange as it is I should be bubbling over with excitement because to all outward appearence I have had a good weekend . Sadly the black dog does not give a shit. It has been very hard work to keep calm and have a smile on my face. I have tried honestly and I think I am getting away with it but boy it is hard.

Saturday was lovely our youngest son and his wife and their beautiful son ( a magical 7weeks and 5days old) came to visit us and join us for dinner. I cannot believe how proud and blessed and even happy it makes me feel to see this little family starting out on their life’s journey. I have to push all the fears that float to the surface in me on their behalf! Yes that bad boy in the corner even gouges at my insides when I should be bursting with joy. I digress yet again , they came and it was lovely I got lots of cuddles and I was informed on the best ways to A How to hold a baby, B How to get a baby off to sleep, and many other things that I thought I knew but obviously have not idea about. However did I bring our three boys up?? I have no illusions no doubt I was just as ‘well informed’ and opiniated in my time as a young mum and my husband too as a new dad!

I was amazed and delighted at how much our little grandchild has grown and he now has focus in his eyes so when he gave me a craft smile I knew it was not just wind. The feeling of cuddling a new baby especially if it is your first grandchild is beyond compare! Even so that black dog was watching me from the corner!

My husband is not very impressed with me he is sick of me I think! I seem to think completely differently from him and right now most things I say are answered with a scorn and incredulity that cuts like a knife. He is convinced that I am loosing it and going slowly into another world ..he thinks I am showing signs of dementia. He also say I spend far too much time on my laptop! I am not I just think in a completely different way to him and so what if I get the wrong end of a stick when I am feeling stressed so what anyway! It just feeds that dog in the corner.

Sunday was not so good had his mother round she has never liked me and delights in baiting me and goading me into an arguement I spent her time with us biting my tongue , smiling and making lots of cups of tea! There is a lot of hassle involved in this but I shall not go into it here!

I have just noticed that I have slipped out of italic print and I have not the energy to rewrite the above so please accept my apologies we are staying as we are now! … Digressing again. Well my husband was doing a favour for his mother, who does not appreciate it or him at all, caught a ladder on the boot of his new car ( a car he has wanted all his life and only now that we have no children to ferry around and enough money to have the odd mad wish come true ) well of course he was upset …it all went over her head , Oh! dear she had commented and then proceeded to compare this with spilling nail varnish on a new dress many years back!! Comments like that take no heat out of a situation like that! Later on that evening afte he had returned from taking her home I went to make him a coffee. The coffee machine, when I moved it set off chain reaction, all the cookery books fell like dominos and in slow motion I watched a a huge and heavy glass vase fall from the worktop and smash into a thousand pieces. My huband flew into a torrant of shouting mainly fuelled by his uncaring mother and as usual I got the brunt of it! But hey he could not of made me feel any worse than I already was or am! It was just a smashing end to a fraught and walking on eggshells day.

Today we are off to a wedding I only know the bride and groom vaguely have met them once , my husband used to work with her and she is a lovely woman! The weather is dull and wet, my husband has woken up depress mainly about the way his mother never shows any care for him or gratitude ( we are the only ones in the family who take her out have her round weekly, have her at all high days and holidays, sort her house out for her and on and on while the ther two siblings and their families are thought more of and this is rubbed in our faces!! _ )

OMG I am digressing again …anyway I have found a great song by Sia called “Chanelier ” it is a wonderful song , the subject is very dark it is about teenage and early 20s/30s binge drinking and drug taking . Okay I am no teenager and I have never done drugs or been a binge drinker but today the lines ( and here we will go back to italics!) ” One two three drink , one , two three drink, I’m gonna swing from the the Chandelier, the Chandelier, I’m going to act like tomorrow dosen’t esist, doesn’t exist!” I just feel it applies to how I am feeling and the young girl who dances and I do mean dances out the words in the video also expresses perfectly how stressed and trapped and manic I feel under this calm, controlled ( laughs like a maniac) exterior.

No doubt I shall behave like a lady! and yes I did notice that I did not go into italics for the lyrics! Hey ho! I am introuble again..OH! yes I spend too long on the laptop and that is helping to addle my brain?? I shall go and shower before I forget where the bathroom is ans while I am at I had best throw that dog a bone so he might leave me for a few hours!!

Love to you all I am doing my best. Right lets hide the pain and paint on my smile ..anyway here are I feeling by Sia!

Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all;
Many times he died,
Many times rose again.
A great man in his pride
Confronting murderous men
Casts derision upon
Suppression of breath;
He knows death to the bone
Man has created death.

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In this poem I see “Death” stalking the battle fields and war torn villages and towns. Eagerly reaping up the dead. No respect for age or sex he just collects them all. Not even the animals are safe from him.

In fact the beginning lines of the poem suggest that there is no hope for man nor beast . There is no hope, for man created war and in doing so they opened the gates of hell to let an unstoppable killing machine/ monster into our world.

Sadly I agree ever since the first tribes picked up stones or branches against each other war has been around in one guise or an other ‘hot’ or ‘cold’ modern or ancient…………………..

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William Butler Yeats 13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939) was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary society.Yeats had a life-long interest in mysticism, spiritualism, occultism and astrology. He read extensively on the subjects throughout his life, became a member of the paranormal research organisation.

He was born and educated in Dublin but spent his childhood in County Sligo. He studied poetry in his youth and from an early age was fascinated by both Irish legends and the occult.

Yeats proposed to 25-year-old Georgie Hyde-Lees (1892–1968), whom he had met through Olivia Shakespear. Despite warning from her friends—”George … you can’t. He must be dead”( he was 51yrs she accepted,) and the two were married on 20 October. Their marriage was a success, in spite of the age difference, and in spite of Yeats’ feelings of remorse and regret during their honeymoon. The couple went on to have two children, Anne and Michael. Although in later years he had romantic relationships with other women and possibly affairs, George herself wrote to her husband “When you are dead, people will talk about your love affairs, but I shall say nothing, for I will remember how proud you were.”

Poetry Challenge #7 is to create a journal of links and your reactions to poems by established (living or dead poets.) Details are here. Example response is here. Mr. Linky for Challenge #7 is directly below:

I like you car, is it new? I have only had it a day or is it two. I love the colour is it blue? Well they call it Azure. Do you know the road well ? Yes I have been down it a thousand times for sure, it is the road that leads right to my door.

they call in Azure blue

Did you get all your presents the shops are such a crush? I did, I did I even got my sister that amazing eye make up brush. And the festive food is that all in hand? Yes and a good thing too as I am cooking this year as planned .

Look who are all those people talking to the police? OMG That is my family they’ve all come out even brought my baby niece. They may of heard the noise of the crash my husband does look pale why is he acting so rash.

I think I had better talk to him before he starts to cry! No, hang on my friend you have to come with me……….. WHY? You have crashed the car my love and you are just about to die. Surely you are joking I am standing here with you, sorry it has been good to chat but I have so much to do.

Tell me what is the last thing you remember before our chat? Well I was concentrating very hard because of all the snow then I had to swerve to miss the cat. It all went black and then, I just don’t know.

OH! my what a commotion they are all in tears and right outside the garden gate the neighbours have not had so much to look at for years. Help I feel so cold and so very weak , is that me inside the car, I just look asleep. Come now my friend I am with you now at your end.I shall guide you now that your earthly life is at an end.

Will they all recover will they manage without me . Don’t worry they will all cope, you can even watch and see.Now just relax and lean your head on me, I have seen you’ve always been kind and you always talk with me. I really do not want to leave them are you really sure. I am my dear friend now come with me just through this open door.

I had no idea what he would say when at the checkout I stop to pass the time of day. How are you doing , good that’s okay and Ellen I heard she was unwell is she okay .

He told me, my friend , his dear wife had only a finger hold left on life.There was no hope they have been told. His fortitude and his daughters face made my blood run cold.

I could see the pained look on his daughters face, both of them trying not to cry I’d reach out but this was not the place. I could say nothing he had not heard before. I told him this, then a look of relief in his eyes I saw.

It would not have help for me to have laboured the point, or to have said any more. It was clear he knew how I felt, and he would of heard it all before.

They finished packing their shopping and as they left they promised to give her my love leaving me lost and bereft.

I hate Cancer it is so cruel it attacks anyone be they wise or a fool. It has no respect for those who are good and kind it tears up your body and it slaughters your mind. If I could kill it I really would it is wicked and bad and evil and does no one any bloody good.

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